Monday, November 30, 2009
The Winter of Our Discontent
It recently occured to us that we've been neglectful in commenting on our friends' blogs. It isn't because we don't care, darlings - because we do! The holidays are a mad rush for us (at our throats, as Noel Coward would say); since we usually only have time to absorb all of your marvelous blogs in one breathless sitting, we often feel insufficiently witty to leave comments. But trust us: we do check in, and giggle, and goggle, and occasionally gleefully glom your photos (e.g., Infomaniac, from whence this sensitive study of Miss Shelley Winters was stolen). So if at words poetic we're so pathetic these days, please be patient and understanding, possums. We love you!
Made in Paris
We dig all these kooky fashions, but especially the bitch in the middle.
With gorgeous hair, yet.
Three Blondes, Three Viewpoints
MARILYN: You see her without glasses!
DIANA: You get free glasses.
JAYNE: Who's looking at her glasses?
Before the Parade Passes By
We wouldn't ask this Efrem to let us go.
EFREM ZIMBALIST, JR.
November 30, 1918
Reconsidering Richard Crenna
RICHARD CRENNA
November 30, 1926 - January 17, 2003
November 30, 1926 - January 17, 2003
It was easy to overlook Richard Crenna - or, at the very least, take him for granted. His rugged, reassuringly solid presence in every other TV movie of the 1980's (and, somewhat less nobly, the Rambo series) made him a familiar, if not terribly exciting, face and name. But digging deeper into his career and filmography is an eye-opening experience. For one thing, his list of leading ladies is nothing if not impressive. There was Gloria "I Married a Monster from Outer Space" Talbott in an episode of the western series Frontier (1956)...
...the Destitute Man's Gloria Grahame, Cleo Moore, in the pulpy neo-noir Over-Exposed (1956)...
...an even-wackier-than-usual Shirley MacLaine in the subversive spoof John Goldfarb, Please Come Home! (1965)...
...the luscious Ann-Margret, and even more luscious Louis Jourdan and Chad Everett, in Made in Paris (1966)...
...a terrorized Audrey Hepburn in her Hollywood swan song, Wait Until Dark (1967)...
...Dame Julie Andrews in the campy, cult-ish Star! (1968), in which they locked lips and clashed plaids...
...and the intense, drag queeny Janice Rule in the sub-Jackie Susann howler, Doctors' Wives (1971).
Clearly, a re-evaluation of Mr. Crenna's ouevre is in order. Oh, and as the deal clincher, we realized that, as the unfortunate husband of Kathleen Turner in Body Heat (1981), Crenna displayed an admirably lean physique at age 51; we would have kept him and dumped William Hurt who, frankly, always sort of freaked us out. Creepy dude.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
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The Lady in Question
And we do mean "lady": our latest Mystery Guest, who fooled everyone, was one of our favorite character actresses, the always-elegant Cathleen Nesbitt, whose 121st birthday it would have been on the day we posted her photo. A highly respected stage actress on both the London and New York stages, Nesbitt is perhaps best known for her supporting roles roles in a series splashy, frothy American film productions.
Besides inflicting its irritating, ubiquitous, yet ultimately irresistible title song upon an unsuspecting public, Three Coins in the Fountain (1954) also marked Nesbitt's American screen debut. The role of "La Principessa" set the tone for Nesbitt's persona for the rest of her career: aristocratic, vaguely Continental, often imposing. The 1950's also found Nesbitt performing before her largest Broadway audiences, again in haughty character roles, in such hits as Gigi (1951), Sabrina Fair (1953), Anastasia (1954) and My Fair Lady (1956).
L-R: SCOTT MCKAY, CATHLEEN NESBITT, ROBERT DUKE, JOSEPH COTTEN AND MARGARET SULLAVAN IN SABRINA FAIR
Drawing upon her French education at Sorbonne, Nesbitt also displayed a rare and touching tenderness in what may be her most widely-seen performance, as Cary Grant's grand-mère Janou in An Affair to Remember (1957).
Strangely, the hugely successful Affair marked the end of Nesbitt's association with 20th Century Fox after four critically- and popularly-acclaimed appearances. At the very least, she gained a wider reputation from her time there, and managed to go to a few swell parties.
CATHLEEN NESBITT AT A 20TH CENTURY FOX EVENT WITH GEORGE CUKOR, DARYL ZANUCK, JR. AND DARYL ZANUCK, SR.
Nesbitt's next major film was Separate Tables (1958), which bore the distinction of not only Oscar-winning turns by David Niven and Wendy Hiller, but also the meeting of two of Britain's greatest actresses: Cathleen Nesbitt and Gladys Cooper.
There were a few more film roles (including a memorable turn as Hayley Mills's staunchy Bostonian grandmother in The Parent Trap, 1961); an Emmy for the television film The Mask of Love (1974); and a reprisal of her role as Henry Higgins' mother in the 1981 Broadway revival of My Fair Lady, once again opposite Rex Harrison, and performed when Nesbitt was into her nineties! Indeed, Cathleen Nesbitt had one of the longest careers of any actress, spanning eight decades. She passed away at age 93 in 1982.
Who Needs a Zhu Zhu...
...when you can wipe your feet on Eve Arden?
Actually, there are few people we'd be less likely to even attempt walking over than the formidable, fabulous Ms. Arden; but we love her, love this ad, and love our friend Drew for sharing it with us - so that we can share it with you. And that, darlings, is the true meaning of the holiday season: urbane homosexuals trading clippings of brassy character dames from the 1940's and 1950's - the gift that keeps on giving. Mary Christmas!
Saturday, November 28, 2009
The Middle Ages
We were described by someone as "an older, middle-aged Asian man."
We'll be spending the weekend applying various masques, ointments, wraps, and monkey glands. See you on Monday, darlings. If we haven't been carted off to the home.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
B-Girl Birthdays
BETTA ST. JOHN
November 26, 1929
November 26, 1929
ADELE JERGENS
November 26, 1917 - November 22, 2002
November 26, 1917 - November 22, 2002
The Law vs. Billy the Kid. The Crime Dotor's Diary. Tarzan and the Lost Safari. Fireman, Save My Child. Corridors of Blood. Girls in Prison. City of the Dead. Runaway Daughters. The combined filmographies of Betta St. John and Adele Jergens indicate that, befitting their birthday, they knew their way around a turkey. Incidentally, they both also had bit parts in the considerably more prestigious Jane Eyre (1944) - Betta as an "Orphan Girl," and Adele as a "Girl at the Party." Strangely, though, we're more inclined to sit through Adele as one of her many gun molls in Armored Car Robbery (1950), or Betta as an exotic prncess crashing the suburbs in Dream Wife (1953).
Happy Birthday, gals! Your special brand of manufactured glamour is sorely missed today.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Darling Duff
CANDY DARLINGNovember 24, 1944 - March 21, 1974
HOWARD DUFFNovember 24, 1913 - July 8, 1990
Somewhere in the cosmos, Candy Darling and Howard Duff are celebrating their birthday together. And, of course, here at SSUWAT.
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